Wooden posts, the kinds one often equates with those that could be seen across vineyards and orchards play a significant part in maintaining the overall support and integrity of the interconnecting wire and/or trellis that is supporting the plantations thereon.
In many instances when the post becomes damaged this wiring needs to be disengaged and removed, the post replaced or repaired to then have the troublesome task of again re-tensioning the wire and/or trellis along a particular column or row.
Quite often the wooden post is damaged towards the base of the post and even in some instances underground.
It would be particularly advantageous if it was possible to almost insitu repair the damaged post rather than having to dig the post out to then replace with an undamaged post, and most importantly by being able to repair the post insitu not have to disengage the interconnecting wire and/or trellis.
As disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 985,605 for well over 100 years people have relied upon clamping arrangements to repair broken posts which for the most part include two brackets configured to come together on opposing sides such that their general shape will encapsulate the post and provide the necessary support.
As also shown in U.S. Pat. No. 985,605 these kinds of brackets can be positioned around the base of the wooden post both immediately above and below the ground.
In order to drive the brackets into the ground rather than having to dig out the post, brackets have been hitherto designed that include sharpened or arrowed ends on the bracket and so forth to which when impact is made on the top of the bracket this drives the fastened brackets into the ground.
However, in order to adequately absorb this impact to drive the brackets into the ground, the brackets themselves are often quite thick and made of reinforced material with various sections of the brackets forged or cast together due to their required thickness in being able to provide a location in which an impact tool can engage the bracket in order to drive into the ground and also allowing the bracket to be of a requisite strength so that it doesn't collapse, break or shatter upon such impact.
As would be expected therefore these kinds of clamping arrangements which require the ability to be impacted so as to be driven into the ground are expensive to manufacture, by their very nature heavy and cumbersome to handle, and require significant storage and transportation considerations.
As the person skilled in the art would realise in any field of technology costs and efficiencies are paramount. The repair of damaged posts in vineyards and orchards often involves the contractors or in-house maintenance personnel being required to repair many posts at a certain time of the year when growing and harvesting of the plant would make that time available.
Therefore, if repairing of damaged posts involved a repairer taking out into the field heavy, expensive and difficult to arrange brackets this will make their task all that more inefficient and uneconomical.
Still further if the clamping arrangement requires the brackets to be of increased thickness in order to provide a location and structural integrity to absorb the applied impact forces as the brackets are driven into the ground, it also then becomes a much more difficult task to first fasten the brackets together about the post and also given the thickness and weight of the brackets are significant greater effort and tooling is going to be required in order to drive such a clamp arrangement into the ground.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide a clamp arrangement for supporting a fractured portion of a wooden post wherein a portion of the clamp arrangement is required to be driven into the ground so that the post can be repaired in position with all the relevant wires and/or trellis attached so that no disturbance to the plantation supported thereon needs to be taken into consideration.